Stitched Butterfly card

First of all, I've been a bit late commenting on Playground entries but right now have caught up. Hooray :)

My card for today is made especially for Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge #101:

And this is the 'wheel' we had to choose our elements from - I stuck to just the butterfly and the colour Mint Green, and I checked our mint plant just to be sure - otherwise it's Moss Green anyhow, so THERE! :) Main thing is I managed to play, just for fun:

I used:

- 5.5" x 4.25" white card blank, side opening

- the image was stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a wood mounted Funstamps stamp called 'Stitched Butterfly' -  onto a snippet of white card

- then I coloured the patchwork design using Pro Markers and trimmed around the edge

- just to finish the patchwork panel off I ran the side of the thick nib of a black Whispers pen right around the edges. Warning, don't ever try this trick with Pro markers as they bleed of course - a lesson learned many years ago

- die cut a white panel using the Lil' Inkers 'Stitched Rectangle' set of dies

- stamped the sentiment, which I thought was nice and 'rustic' in keeping with the patchwork design, using the Misti and Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink as always and the Stampendous 'Happy Messages' set of stamps

- mounted that onto a very slightly larger (snippet) of mauve card

- then added them onto the card front and there it was - done!

Coo, hot here innit!

Butterfly Challenge #100

I don't seem to have enough time to join in with many challenges these days - the Playground takes up a lot of time, plus I generally only post twice a week on here. Often a challenge has passed by before I've even had a chance to think about it!

However, Mrs. A is celebrating her 100th Butterfly Challenge over the next four weeks and I couldn't let that pass by without playing along.

So here's my card:

 And this time the 'wheel' looks like this:

 

I picked a butterfly of course (top left of the image panel) plus the colour hot pink - both in the backing paper - plus the fuchsias are partly hot pink as well. There's also what could pass for harvest gold in that paper! On hindsight, I could have heat embossed the sentiment - thought of that one too late though! However, I'll settle for the butterfly plus the colour hot pink from the wheel.

I used:

- white card blank, tent style with the lower edge cut using a Lawn Fawn 'Stitched Scalloped Borders' die

- stamped image from the Penny Black 'delicate florals' set - stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and coloured with Faber-Castell Polychromos pencils

- whilst the image was still on a square of card I added the sentiment using the Misti (which likes things tucked into corners or along a straight edge even when using the magnets). The sentiment is from the Clearly Besotted 'Say what?' stamp set (love the selection in that set!) - stamped using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink of course

- then die cut the image using a die from The Works set of 'Stitched Circles' - to place the die I held it in place with the cutting side uppermost so I could see where the stitched lines would go, ran a soft pencil around the inside edge, flipped the die over and held it in position with removable sticky tape

- trimmed a piece of turquoise card, trimmed and glued onto the card front

- then trimmed a piece of patterned paper from the Kate Knight 'Totally Tropical' paper pad which was a magazine freebie way back in 2011! Trimming the paper was a bit heart stopping as I only had one sheet of patterned paper with a butterfly on - the butterfly is as far up and to the left as I could make it

- then glued the paper to the turquoise layer on the card front and also glued the circular image panel in place

Normally I centralise most image panels but needed to have that butterfly on show - it just wasn't in the right place on the paper no matter how much I jiggled it about - but my in-house critic likes it!

The backing paper reminds me of a dress I had - way back in the dim and distant past. If I say I used to wear it with white knee length boots that gives a bit of a clue about the era!

This card is for a very dear friend - Happy Birthday chick! Mine's a Bacardi and Coke with ice and lemon please :) Cheers! x

A card for the current Butterfly Challenge #95

As soon as I spotted 'pink and paper piecing' as optional themes on Mrs A's Butterfly 'all the P's' challenge - there was no holding me back. Especially as a lovely blogging buddy just very recently gifted me a pre-loved 'Zentangle style' stamp, which she thought would be good for paper piecing - and it has a butterfly on it!!

In the end, I also added pearls as well - but just couldn't run to patterned paper and peach (the other two options) without losing sight of the bright, modern and funky card I had in mind. Adding the pearls was stretching it a bit, but I do think they work OK-ish:

I used:

- white DL card

- a slightly smaller layer of white card cut to size, which I edged right round for about half an inch or a bit less, using a purple Pro marker (didn't have any bright enough purple card here - and this is one trick I do keep forgetting to use!)

- at the same time I also swiped the purple Pro marker over a couple of snippets of white card - in case my trimming went wrong! 

- glued the 'purple edged' card onto the card front

- then took a piece of white card not yet trimmed to size and, using the Misti, stamped the lovely floral image and a sentiment in Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink in the centre. Thanks to Kath I now know that the pre-loved stamp set is made by Woodware and is called 'Tulip Doodle'

- whilst the Misti was set up I also stamped the floral 'Zentangle' image onto paper in almost neon shades of pink and green (goodness knows how old they are!) - as well as the butterfly onto little pieces of purple card I'd coloured with Pro markers. Over time I've learned that if you do have enough paper/card then it's really best to stamp extra in case of mistakes when trimming the images for paper piecing

- then trimmed the white card panel with the stamped image and sentiment down to size, before going any further

- next carefully trimmed around the leaves, flowers and butterfly that had been stamped onto coloured paper/card (I use very small Fiskars embroidery scissors, kept purely for paper cutting). Then ran a black Whispers pen around the edges just to keep the outlines as crisp as possible (if you do this, don't use a Pro marker or similar, as it will bleed - I learned this the hard way a very long time ago!)

- using a Zig glue pen (the bullet shaped one where you can apply wide or very narrow lines of glue), I then, step by step, added glue to the card front images and popped the leaves, flower heads and butterfly in place

- final touch, little pearls on the stems where the stamp design had already drawn circles as well as on the centre of the butterfly's body- just to add dimension, emphasise the butterfly theme and also make this up to FOUR of Mrs A's 'theme choices'

I realised afterwards that I could have just pretended to do some paper piecing and used Pro markers to do the colouring - so here's the proof:

Such a pretty stamp and also I'm delighted that Mrs A has widened the choices of themes and colours. You still have almost a week left to join in! The link is above right at the top of this post and prizes can be won :)

Butterly Challenge # 94

Mrs A has revised the format of her Butterfly Challenge, widening the themes to three and also the colours to three - hop over and check it out! Of course you always have to include one butterfly or more. The current challenge is a choice of things beginning with the letter 'C' BTW.

I chose just the colour cornflower (or as close as I could find here!) - along with a flight of butterflies ready to flutter away:

I used:

- 4.25" x 5.5" white card blank, tent style

- snippet of my version of cornflower blue card (it's actually SU's 'Marina Mist' now that I've checked against the swatch - but cornflowers do come in different shades of blue and this is one of the lighter shades - tee, hee)

- I trimmed the snippet of blue card to just a bit bigger than I wanted the panel of butterflies to be. Then pencilled around it on the front of the card so that I'd keep the die cuts about quarter of an inch inside the pencil lines - to allow for sticking the blue panel on place later on

- then used the Misti to stamp the Birthday sentiment onto the card front, using a little SU 'Marina Mist' ink pad and a stamp which came with the All Occasions 'That Folder' set

- next die cut four solid butterfly shapes into the card front - overlapping them slightly - as well as keeping them quarter of an inch inside the penciled 'frame area'. I used the Memory Box 'Isabella' die for this

- die cut four white butterflies using the matching Memory Box 'Pippi' die, which is all open and lacy

- onto now assembly time, I used red line tape to adhere the blue panel to the back part of the card front - and little snippets of red line tape to make sure all the 'pointy and therefore likely to lift up' bits of the die cut front apertures would be held securely in place as well

- then added a slightly smaller panel of white card to the whole of the inside of the card front - to cover up the blue panel inside the card

- added a slick of clear Wink of Stella to the bodies/feelers of the butterflies

- popped the bodies and feeler sections onto the lacy butterflies, then added them over the blue backed die cut apertures on the card front, overlapping as seemed best, using Collall glue and a fine liner bottle ....... then called it done!

One slight 'blip' to my eagle eyed scrutiny is that I can only just tell there's a darker panel across the inside/centre of the card if I hold it up to the light - and it was also a bit touch and go as to whether I'd end up with a slight ridge on the card front around that area as well. These are very minor points, but another time I would use 300gsm card rather than what I think is 250gsm or even less gsm ready made cards cut down to suit. I know, Little Miss Picky here!

I'd spotted this sort card of with solid cut-outs and then matching lacy butterflies over the coloured apertures not so long ago and thought it such a pretty idea.

I was going to say that you need both the solid and also the matching lacy/open dies for this design - but thinking about it - of course you don't! You would use an open lacy die to cut across the card itself as I did with the solid one which would still give you the line of apertures in any case. Although you would still then need to die cut more complete butterflies to add to the backed apertures if you overlapped them.

And, I get to play over at Mrs A's as well - I bet she puts me on the naughty step for being missing in action for so long :)

Mrs. A's Butterfly Challenge #85

Screeching in at the last minute here for Mrs A's latest challenge #85 Butterflies + S is for Silhouette and/or the colour Indigo. Hope I'm not too late :(

And, it's one of Darnell's NBUS challenges, and as it's a first outing for this gorgeous die I'm linking up over there as well. There are lots of lovely prizes to be won too! As always, it's anything goes with Darnell - ssshhh, I won't tell :)

I was recently sent a really lovely 'unbranded made in China' die by a sweet blogging friend (thank you again! xx) and it immediately came to mind for this challenge - here's what I made:

I used:

- A6 white card blank

- a smaller piece of thin indigo coloured card, which has a slight shimmer to it, for the backing frame

- trimmed a snippet of white card slightly smaller than the indigo card and glued those two pieces together

- then die cut the fabulous butterfly die using indigo card again which was backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet

- popped it onto the piece of white card and ran it through the Cuttlebug with the embossing plates as well as a large embossing folder to give the right thickness (don't put the embossing folder next to the card as I think you might get a slightly rippled surface even though the folder would be closed)

- then used the Misti to position and stamp the sentiment using SU's 'Melon Mambo' ink and a sentiment from MFT's 'Tickled Pink' set of stamps

- glued the whole panel to the card front and added little bright pink KanBan self-adhesive diamante gems to the butterflies and flowers

The indigo coloured card is a very deep, deep 'jeans' blue - although it looks a bit black in the photo needless to say! Mrs. A bought some at the same time on one of our 'let's wreck a craft show' outings so she knows the colour well!

Ha, I almost had a moment of total madness when I set out to make this card by pondering over actually inlaying the die cut! Can you imagine putting all those teensy little pieces of white back in place? Although by running the whole panel through the Cuttlebug as I described above, you do achieve the impression that the die cut is inlaid anyhow.

It's absolutely ages and ages since I dug around in my quite large box of self-adhesive pearls and gems and I must have almost a gazillion sheets of those multi-coloured KanBan gems. Seems to me like they've been breeding on the quiet. 😉

We will miss you .................

As I already said in a previous post, one of our 'partners in crime' (Moira) couldn't make our school reunion - this is the card I sent off to her so it would arrive when the event kicked off. And we did miss her very much needless to say:

I used:

- 4" x 6" cream card blank (I reverted to our A6 measurement as, according to the image panel, plus sentiment, it actually looked more balanced)

- a Penny Black Stickeroo from the 'romance of flowers' sheet - adhered to a snippet of card and then die cut using a Spellbinders oval die - ran a ball ended tool around the edge before removing the image from the die itself

- from the same Stickeroo sheet I then added a separate butterfly sticker

- die cut a backing layer using SU's Wisteria Wonder' card and a shallow scalloped Spellbinders die, again ran a ball ended tool around the outer 'grooves' then glued the image to the backing panel

- the sentiment was stamped, using the Misti, VersaFine 'Vintage Sepia' ink and a sentiment from the Penny Black set called 'special thoughts'

- glued the image panel in place and left it at that - used cream and managed four layers, if you count the addition of the butterfly!

This card is for Mrs A's current 'Butterfly Challenge' where the theme is 'L is for Layers and/or the colour Cream'. You have another two weeks to join in folks!

I got back home safely yesterday but do need time to catch up on the Snippets Playground girls! In my absence, Megan stepped forward as our current Guest Designer and offered to make sure she commented on your entries. Bless her heart, I've just begun hopping around your entries and she's been true to her word - thank you so much Megan! What a star.

BTW, I had the colly wobbles about my vastly improved back holding up over the weekend - what with longish car drives, luggage humping, strange bed, clambering about on boats etc. But, so far, all is good! Of course, it might just have helped that this was also the first time I didn't get up on the table and do a can-can followed by a quick swing from a chandelier after the formal Saturday Dinner :)

When I get time I'll pop some photos on a blog post with a couple of tales from recent events - believe me, there are some things at these reunion weekends you really couldn't make up!

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 249

Right now I'm still 'missing in action' and I hope you had a great week playing along without me. I left you in Jane's capable hands - and the little white bear was under strict orders to keep his little sticky beak to himself!

This is just a short post to add a fresh Mr Linky for the coming week and also to let you know what the prize is of course!

First of all, here's my snippets card: 

I used:

- 5" x 5" white card blank

- a snippet of white Centura Pearl card stock, trimmed just slightly smaller than the card base and  glued in place

- a little snippet of really pretty card, left over from a Wedding card I made years ago, it's a slightly glossy background with lovely 'encapsulated' sparkly swirls all over. Trimmed to just slightly smaller than the Centura layer of card and glued in place

- more white Centura Pearl card snippets which I die cut using the following dies: Marianne 'Doily Star' die set, La-La Land 'Filigree Corner' die and Joy Crafts 'Vintage Flourishes - Butterfly' die

- then glued the elements in place on top of the sparkly layer of card - using Collall All Purpose glue in a Woodware fine line bottle

- final touch - white MeiFlower pearls in each corner and around the doily die plus a little strand of graduated pearls, which I snipped from a Prima flourish, down the butterfly's body

My snippets card is also my entry for Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge #63 where the theme is 'Butterfies + W is for Wire and/or White on White. I couldn't easily find any wire so I just opted for the White on White element - and am only playing for fun as this card is a bit very similar to Jane's entry, but I already had this card planned so I'll link it anyhow - for fear of Mrs A slapping my wrists:

The prize draw for the Poppy Stamps 'Love Never melts' stamps and dies sets will take place once I'm settled back home and will be published next week (Week 250).

Here's this coming week's prize:

I had to 'borrow' this image as the butterfly die hadn't arrived here when I did this post, but it's safely here and waiting to be won!

There are three items, the Marianne 'Doily Star' die set, the La-La Land 'Filigree Corner' die and the Joy Crafts 'Vintage Flourishes - Butterfly' die - all the same as I used on my snippets card. The Marianne 'Doily Star' die would look fabulous on Christmas cards I think! in fact, you could make a card very similar to this on and add a sentiment in the centre instead of the butterfly.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 8th October. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize, or if you'd only like to play for one or more of the dies. I'm happy to split them and do further draws if you win and only want one or two items. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Have a lovely week! Big hug from Parsnip, and of course me!

And huge thanks again to Jane for looking after the Playground - I owe you chocolate next time we meet :)

Butterfly Challenge #60

Mrs A's latest Butterfly challenge is a lovely pair of themes (as well as at least one butterfly of course). It's Butterflies and V is for Vases and/or Vanilla.

I'm late playing along but do hate to miss this challenge, even though I normally just play for fun it's good to tax the old grey matter. This is my card:

I used:

- 6" x 6" vanilla card blank. I actually checked the colour against a tub of Vanilla ice cream in the freezer, mad or what?!

- as the image panel I wanted to use was an oblong, to add balance I punched one edge of a strip of SU's 'Wisteria Wonder' card (from the snippets folder) using Fiskars 'Wavy Leaf Edger' punch (had to remind it who I was as it's so long since it saw the light of day!)

- adhered the edge strip down the right hand side of the card front and then trimmed off the top and bottom overlap once it was in place

- another snippet of SU's 'Wisteria Wonder' card stock onto which I stuck a Penny Black Stickeroo from the 'Painted Vase' sheet of stickers before trimming it down to a 'frame'

- glued the image and frame onto the card front and then added a little butterfly from the Penny Black 'April in Paris' Stickeroo sheet of stickers - thought it matched pretty well :)

- finally I stamped the corner sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from Phill Martin's Scribbled Corner Sentiments 'Everyday' set

I think Mr Mojo might just be peeking round the door of the craft room :)

Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 240

It's been a tad cooler here this week, but pleasant weather generally though.
I'm still trying to limit time spent sitting at the desk here, which can mean some slippage in timely commenting, but I do always get to you in the end!

A little bit of excitement here, we have a Mama hedgie bringing at least two of her babies with her when she comes for a nightly feed! As yet, they haven't got the hang of the feeding dish and seem to just scoot around the garden having fun. My guess is that they're about the size of a small mango - so still pretty young. Thankfully it's a while until Autumn so they have plenty of time to reach a comfortable weight for hibernation. I can't promise any photos as yet so you'll just have to trust me for now.

Here's my snippets card for this week, it's a little busier than I tend to like/make these days but wanted to use a couple of dies, as well as a punch, the colour pink and butterflies so I could join in with Mrs A's current Butterfly Challenge #59 Butterflies + P is for punches and/or pink:

I used:

- 4" x 8" white card blank, tent style

- snippet of plain pink Core-dinations card from the snippets folder, trimmed and then each end was punched with a Martha Stewart 'Vintage Lace' punch before glueing it onto the card front

- cut a smaller oblong of white card stock and glued that on top of the pink layer

 
- then die cut the teacup stack and the sentiment using two Apple Blossom dies - called 'Teacups' (the stack of cups) and 'Time for Tea' (the sentiment) - using snippets of plain white card

- next die cut the sentiment using a snippet of pink gingham paper from the Craftwork Cards 'Kitsch collection pack and glued it to the matching white card die cut

- the cups were a little more fiddly as the die actually cuts the stack as one whole piece and it's up to you to chop and change papers then layer the cups up. I already had one failed attempt which is why I hit on the idea of die cutting the plain white card layer first. AND, this time I also remembered that you place the very top cup onto the card first, leaving a little bit extra underneath. Then cut across the top of the middle cup and glue that in place, also leaving a little bit extra underneath and finally cut right across the bottom cup and glue that in place. That way the cups look as if they're nestled inside one another

- glued the sentiment and cups onto the card front and then die cut three butterflies from a small snippets from the same paper pack using the SU 'Embosslits Beautiful Wings' die set and glued them in place

I've recently missed out on a couple of challenges where certainly the stacked teacups would have been just perfect and thought it better to get them while they were on a brilliant offer - and also still in 'vogue' too! Ha, the butterflies look like a little squadron about to land of the cupcake and tuck in :)

The sentiment would be clearer if cut from plain card but I wanted to pick out one of the cups with the pink gingham.

Now for this week's peek at the picks:

Vinita made this fabulous almost purely black and white card and I love all the beautiful detail. She entered it into Mrs A's previous butterfly challenge so there's a little touch of denim there - as well as loads of fabulous dimension. Needless to say it was also a pick for the top five over at the Butterfly House, and rightly so!

I gasped when this amazing tea light holder popped up in the Playground! It was made by Sonia and is just breathtaking. So, so much work and love has gone into making this - you really do need to hop over to her blog HERE and see all the close-ups! The leaves were made from snippets of paper by the way - the flowers were made using Thai clay, which is a new one on me. I did think it might be much like Martha Stewart's paper clay but from the little bit of Googling I've done it seems quite different.

Now, isn't this just super-cute?! Maura brought this gorgeous card to share with us, I love the marching band as well as the fact that it's s really clever shaker card too. The red, white and blue is so striking as well.

Lesley comes up with some really great ideas - and this is a stunner! Totally made from scratch, and the 'sunburst' was designed and cut by hand, it's just perfect for a chap who's interested in or plays darts. Lots of photos to see over at Lesley's blog showing each step - what a clever sausage she is, love it!

We don't see as much of Eve since the arrival of 'Posy the Puppy', so it was a real treat when she nipped into the Playground to share this gorgeous card with us. More Stampin' Up goodies on my wish list! Sigh.

I must show you this, partly because of the amazing Brushos background - and also because the young lady (Aurora) holding the card was having a very first play with them! She's Alice's niece and has appeared on here previously - obviously talent runs in the family!

Now for a little drum roll, Jane J (who is often a weekly pick here) is celebrating six years of blogging with a fabulous giveaway HERE.

What a wonderful gesture, you can win all of the above items (a beautiful bracelet, bag charm and earrings) all  handmade by Jane, just by hopping over and leaving a comment. Of course it would be lovely if you become a follower and there are also a couple of ways you can have additional chances in the draw.

No new Playmates this week, although seeing as it's Summer holiday time we did have 46 of you come and play!

Now it's prize draw time, for the Sue Wilson Creative Expressions 'Dove of Peace' two piece die set. And the winner is:

Kitty

Kitty last won in the bumper Christmas draw, so it was good to see her name pop out as she plays each week and is often featured in the weekly picks too. Can you please drop me a quick email Kitty to confirm that your address is the still the same - I know you moved out while some work was being done but think you're back in the same house again? My email addy is on the right hand sidebar. As soon as I hear from you I'll post the die set off at our local Post Office.

Here's this coming week's prize - and in fact we have two prize draws this week - explained below:

First of all it's two dies, the same as I used on my snippets card. Both are by Apple Blossom and are called 'Teacups' and 'Time for Tea' respectively. They cut beautifully and come with their own magnetic backing sheet as well.

I'm very conscious that I seem to offer a lot of dies as prizes so also am also offering this lovely stamp set, kindly donated by Mrs A (she gave it to me when we met Darnell a couple of weeks ago):

I don't have this stamp set myself so can't make a 'snippets sample' to show it in use, but, it comes with the flower stamp plus two sentiments. I did giggle though, when Mrs A gave the stamp to me I squealed 'Oooh, how lovely, a hibiscus stamp!'. And she didn't correct me either. My excuse is that I wasn't wearing my specs at the time - of course it's a lovely clump of pansies! :) Duh. I've seen coloured examples on the internet and it's a really pretty set.

So, the dies and the stamp are two separate prizes. I'll draw the dies first and then follow with the stamp set - and there will be two different winners even if the same number pops out twice 'cos I'll do a re-run to make it more fair. All you have to do, if you want to be 'in it to win it' is to say in a comment if you'd like to play for both the prizes, depending which one is available if and when your number is chosen by the Random Number thingy - or for both the dies or the stamps. I won't be splitting the dies BTW, both make up one prize.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 6th August. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

A maximum of ONE entry and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of a prize. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :) 


Di and, of course, Parsnip
x

Butterfly Challenge #58 - Butterflies + D is for Dimension and/or Denim

Ooops, screeching into Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge at the last minute - as is often the case! Here's my 'Denim' plus (what I hope is enough) 'Dimension' butterfly card:

I used:

- 4" x 6" white card blank, tent style

- piece of pale blue denim print paper from the Joanna Sheen 'Haberdashery' paper pack, trimmed slightly smaller than the card front and glued in place

- white card for the two front layers, die cut using the Spellbinders 'Resplendent Rectangles' set then glued the bigger layer in place

- the smaller layer needed a sentiment stamping onto it and I did some fiddling with the Misti. Basically, I was using an Elzybells sentiment stamp, which is solid red rubber and also wanted to be sure that it stamped fully. I was using Memento 'Paris Dusk' ink so knew I had a good start there. Here's how I adapted the Misti. I placed the Stampin' Up thin clear plastic sheet from the SU stamp positioner onto the Misti and popped the two magnets on it to hold it in place. Having swiped the back of the stamp with removeable tape runner, I then placed the sentiment stamp face down onto the clear plastic sheet, where it would be picked up by the lid

- firmly closed and then opened the Misti lid and at that point I had the stamp secured to the lid and the plastic held in place by magnets. Inked up the stamp and closed the lid - which left the image on the acetate. Hope you're still with me - if not just shout and I'll do a further post with some photos

- next took the already die cut top white layer of card and lifted just one of the magnets to slip it underneath the plastic sheet so I could line the sentiment up where I wanted it (could see this as the sentiment was already stamped onto the clear plastic sheet of course)

- it's really important to keep the plastic sheet in the same position whilst you slip the piece of card underneath as the stamp is going to come down in the very same place as it was picked up from. Once happy, and it took seconds, I held the piece of card in place with the magnet I'd removed earlier, removed the plastic sheet altogether and for extra 'belt, braces and double knicker elastic' also added the second magnet

- re-inked the sentiment with the same ink pad and then stamped it onto the top layer of white card. Sure enough, it took more than one go to get a clear, even image - phew, that fiddling on was so worth it!

- then die cut one white butterfly and one pale blue denim butterfly, using Memory Box dies called 'Darla' and 'Vivienne', layered them so that the denim blue lace wings were flicked up and then stuck the butterfly in place onto the card front

Hindsight being what it is, I could have saved all the fiddling round with the Misti and the clear plastic if I'd thought to stamp the sentiment onto a piece of white card first in roughly the right position and then do the die cutting afterwards - duh :(

Di
x

Mrs A's Challenge - #57 Butterflies + Y is for Years and/or Yellow.

Time to join in with Mrs A's latest Butterfly Challenge #57 and this fortnight's twist is 'Y is for Years and/or Yellow'.

I decided to use the same Happy Birthday die that I used on my Sunday Snippets card, to show you how well it works on either one of the two top corners. It's also a reminder that a corner Happy Birthday die exactly the same is on offer as part of this week's Snippets Playground prize:

I used:

- 4.25" x 5.5" white card blank

- piece of white card, embossed using SU's 'Square Lattice' embossing folder and trimmed to slightly smaller than the card front before being glued in place

- an image from a now discontinued LOTV 'Spring Flowers' Art Pad (pre-coloured, which is why they were so useful, sigh)

- a snippet of purple card to pick up the hyacinth colour, die cut using a Die-Versions Corner Concepts 'Happy Birthday' die

- trimmed the image panel and then added the die cut sentiment to the top right hand corner

- glued the whole panel in place on the card front

There's yellow in the flowers and also a little blue butterfly beside the vase!

Di
x

Butterfly Challenge #55

The latest challenge over at Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge is 'Butterflies + A is for Aperture and/or Apricot'. Just one butterfly is acceptable BTW.

Apricot card stock is rare as hens' teeth here but eventually I found a paper pad with apricot/peach papers in so went with those, and came up with this (it was such a sunny day when I took the photo that the colours look paler than they are in real life):

I used:

- 6" x 6" square cream card blank

- covered the front of the card with a slightly trimmed sheet from Wild Rose Studio's 'Peach Blossom' paper pack and then die cut the centre aperture using a Spellbinders round Nestie

- using the same sized round die plus a compatible scalloped round Nestie die cut the pale green scrolled patterned frame to go around the aperture and glued it in place

- added a script patterned sheet of paper from the same paper pad to the inside of the card

- then stamped the sentiment onto a scrolled patterned sheet of paper from the same paper pack using a VersaFine ink pad and an Inkylicious stamp called 'Thank You Calligraphy'

-  die cut the sentiment panel using the same plain round die as before and glued it in place behind the aperture. Easiest way to do this is to close the card front then apply the circle through the die cut hole to ensure it sits perfectly behind the aperture

- cut another pale green scrolled patterned frame to go around the circle and glued it in place, to echo the front of the card

- die cut a plain cream butterfly using a solid Memory Box butterfly die called 'Isabella', then topped it with a lacy cream matching butterfly which was cut using Memory Box's 'Pippi' die (using snippet backed with Stick It adhesive sheet)

- then die cut two 'Pippi' butterflies from snippets of Stick It backed leftover apricot and green paper and then inlaid pieces into the butterfly  (that was my moment of crafting madness as it took ages, I really should have listened to what Lindsey said about her using the same technique on a card I featured in the Playground the other week). You live and learn :)

- layered the butterfly's body twice to add dimension and then stuck that in place before adding the butterfly to the edge of the aperture

For what I thought would be a quick card, this took much longer than I thought - but it was good fun to make!

Di 
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Butterfly Challenge #52 Butterflies + F is for Fancy Folds and/or Fuchsia

Good grief, Mrs A is working us harder as the weeks go by! This fortnight it's Butterflies + F is for Fancy Folds and/or Fuchsia.

I never seem to have enough time to play with fancy folds these days, and they certainly are my Achilles tendon heel - so I played safe and made a stepper card, which has a few folds in it and it certainly does have fuchsia colours aplenty:

I used:

- white card stock, die cut using the Presscut 'Step Card Cutting' die set. A tip with this die, I love it to pieces but it really does pay to use a scoring tool and some sort of score board to further score the lines produced by the die before doing any folding in order to avoid paper fibres tearing at the folds and looking a bit ragged

- the backing paper panels were die cut using the same set and a piece of fuchsia pink patterned paper from Wild Rose Studio's 'Annabelle's Meadow' paper pack

- the image (complete with little butterflies) is from LOTV's (sadly discontinued) 'Cute Cottage Garden' Art Pad, trimmed well down and the corners rounded using an XCut corner rounder punch

- the sentiment stamp I used (with a Memento 'Gray Flannel' ink pad) comes from the MFT set called 'Tickled Pink' (bought primarily to go with the MFT flamingo dies but so useful for other cards as well)

- then just glued everything to the card base - it's times like this that glue really comes into its own - less chance of stuff being 'on the wonk'- used another sheet of the patterned paper, different design but toning, to line the inside of the card and also added a panel of white card with rounded corners for a message

- final touch, a couple of satin finish fuchsia pink Josy Rose nail heads at each end of the sentiment strip

Just made it in time to join in with Mrs A's challenge - I wonder what fiendish theme she's got cooked up for the next fortnight, sigh.

Di
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Butterfly challenge #51 - Margins and mint

The latest challenge over at Mrs A's is 'Butterflies + M is for Margins, with the additional option of  M is for the colour Mint'. And for once an idea for a card popped straight into my head - there's still almost a week to run so why not have a go?

This is the card I made, I wanted the colour mint to be the focal point of a fresh and quite clean looking card, and it IS soft shades of mint not turquoise (camera lies yet again):

I used:

- 4" x 6" white linen card blank (these date back to my really early card making days)

- first of all stamped four butterflies using Memento 'London Fog' ink and all four stamps from the Inkylicious 'Flutters 2' set onto a snippet of white card stock

- then selected three shades of mint from my Pro markers and coloured the butterflies in before fussy cutting round them

- hunted for suitable papers to match the butterfly colours - would normally do this the other way round but wanted to be sure the butterflies were a true mint green and was prepared to compromise if I couldn't find any mint papers to match

- success though, the background papers are from a Kaisercraft paper pad called 'Blue Bay' - and a lot of the papers are mint green rather than blue or turquoise, yay! I cut a piece of the distressed looking beige paperfrom the pad and added just a margin of mint from one of the papers which is actually a design of planks of weather worn wood

- taped the edge of the beige paper to overlap the margin of mint and only then did I trim the paper top and bottom - that way you aren't trying to avoid one piece being a sliver too big or small

- the pad also includes sentiments and I chose a round one - love the words!

- then it was just a matter of gluing everything on place

A quick and easy card - love the paper pad I used. Interestingly it's six and a half inches by six and a half inches in size rather than the usual six by six.

A lifesaver was my latest toy, the Misti stamp positioner - which I'd dithered over for absolutely ages. Bought it from Dies to Die for last week and was really lucky as Tracey had just had a new shipment, the next shipment isn't due until May. Sure, it's going to be great for batch baking cards as I tend to do a fair bit of that - but, the real bonus I think is being able to re-ink and stamp so precisely over a poorly stamped image. Love it!

Di
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Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 217

What a total Godsend it was having Sarn so kindly looking after you last week! The aftermath of the gout session left me with back issues from using the crutches, then walking stick and then limping for weeks. Now that the trotter is more or less fine, the back flared up big time - meaning that time spent at the laptop and desk had to be dramatically curtailed. I can't express how grateful I am to Sarn for her help - even though neither of us expected me to go into Hunchback of Notre Dame mode!

And, what a terrific job Sarn did as well - a huge gold star for sure! AND, bless her little cotton socks, she's volunteered to continue for this coming week to give me a fighting chance of recovering. Thank you so much Sarn, I owe you - BIG TIME! Please go HERE to see Sarn's really darling snippets card - Parsnip has fallen in love :)

This is my snippets card, which I made in little bursts during the week - literally 20 minutes tops at the desk at a time:

I used:

- 5" x 7" white card blank - short edge opening

- a piece of the same card stock, embossed using the Couture Creations 'Bon Jour' folder then trimmed to just slightly smaller than the card front and glued into place

- next I stamped the 'friend' sentiment using Memento 'Tuxedo Black' ink and a stamp from the fabulous Paper Smooches set called 'Sentiment Sampler'. I LOVE this stamp set - great variety of sentiments in quite funky fonts

- then used a little handful of plain card snippets (green, blue and black), all backed with Stick-It adhesive sheet to die cut the poppy using  a Memory Box die called 'Perky Poppy' and fixed it in place on the embossed layer. I made the poppy blue for a challenge - and also as I quite like the change from red

- tickled the poppy petals with Clear Wink of of Stella

- added one little butterfly, die cut using SU's 'Beautiful Wings' embosslit and a little scrap of blue pearlescent card - topped with a small white pearl

I can't remember if I've said this before, these days I don't buy ready cut 5" x 7" card blanks - but I do love the size (which you can't cut from a 12" sheet of card of course). I now buy ready made 7" x 7" square ones and then chop them down to long edge opening, tent style or short edge opening as required. The offcuts are always handy, I can get three different styles of opening and for me it's the most economical way to work - 5" x 7" envelopes can always be bought online or in local craft shops.

I'd like to enter this card into Mrs A's Butterfly Challenge #48 - where the current theme is Butterflies + S is for Stamping and/or Sapphire as an additional option. Yay, I managed to include both, plus the little butterfly :) You still have three days left to join in the fun (it closes on Tuesday night), and it's two years since Mrs A began the challenge! Where did the time go?

Let's take a 'peek at the picks', as chosen by Sarn of course - and she's picked practically the same entries as I would have chosen! I have been peeking each morning on my tablet in bed whilst having the early morning cuppa - always the best tasting one of the day to me! Here we go:

Sarn said: I chose it because I just love the pretty mix of embroidery and stamping.

Isn't it pretty, made by Elly and I'd have picked this card too! Sarn and I generally sing from the same song sheet :)

 Jenny H brought this beauty of a card and Sarn said: This card makes such a lovely Mother's Day card with the lovely die cutting and addition of lace.

Another lovely pick Sarn!

Would you believe that for the next two picks Sarn chose two of our new Playmates - again, choices that I totally agree with too!

Sarn said: This is such a lovely project and I find all the colourful mixed media, embellishments and ribbons really appealing.

This was made by Meena and it really is so pretty!

And finally, this is Sarn's fourth pick of the week. And she said: Loved this fantastic accordion album and tag book. So much detail and very colourful.

Do hop over to Sharada's blog for a peek - the photos inside are just so joyful!

If I'm right, we had five new Playmates this week - if I missed anyone new do email me and I'll showcase you next week (my email addy is on the sidebar). Sarn had already picked out Meena and Sharada as part of her choice this week - so that leaves us with a further three new Playmates to welcome:

Such a pretty card, made by Renata. I love the combination of turquoise and green and such a great design too.

A lovely Birthday card was brought to us by Stefi - great design and such a fun image too. Mia and Livi would love this card as they both ride during the warmer months (right now it's skiing and ice skating, one of the benefits of living in Germany where the seasons are more predictable!).

And finally we had this lovely card from Charlotte (Lady Joyful). I love the bokeh effect and the butterflies are a beautiful addition to such a soft and pretty background.

Out of interest, Charlotte emailed me to say she'd been trying unsuccessfully to comment on last week's post - using Wordpress. If anyone here can help do please hop over to Charlotte's blog - she was trying to use the Wordpress option for commenting but kept being rejected, sigh :(

Hope you all come back to play again really soon!

On the news front, both Sarn and I had independently picked up that Andrea (KandA) is now a proud grandma to the prettiest little baby girl:

Isn't she just adorable? Congratulations from all of us Andrea! And this is the card Andrea made to welcome the new baby, those buttons are from when her daughter (the new Mum) was a baby herself - aw:

Time for the prize draw here now. We had the Woodware 'Wedding Hearts' stamps set - kindly donated by Nina who is the owner of Creativity Cards and Crafts, which is Sarn's local craft shop. And also the Creative Expressions 'Gemini-Cygnus' dies donated by Sarn!

And our winner is:

Val (Aquarius)

Well done Val! According to my little book, apart from a small win in the bumper Christmas draw,  Val has only won once before ( in October 2014) - so it was about time too.

I do have your address Val and your prize will be on its way to you as soon as possible.

The Playground prize this coming week is:

Linked to today's snippets card - it's your own Memory Box 'Perky Poppy' die and a Paper Smooches 'Sentiments Sampler' stamp set. Sorry about the light bouncing back, you can see a clearer picture of the stamp set here.

The Snippets Challenge will run for one week and the Playground gates will close at 11am UK time on Saturday 27th February. The gates will open again at midnight UK time on the same day.

I'm trying something new this week! I did some adding up and discovered that out of the 108 entries we had last week - 33 were additional entries within the allowed upper limit of three. So that's almost a third as many again entries to look at and comment on.

As Sarn is being so helpful with the commenting and also due to the recent real upsurge in entries, can I please ask that you only add ONE entry this week. It's wonderful to see so many of you playing along and I don't want to put you off the Playground, but this might just make you stop and ponder over which of your snippets makes you'd like to link in? So many of our cards do contain snippets in one form or another that I can see why entries have risen so dramatically - plus we have a lot more people playing along.

We'll see how that idea goes - it certainly levels the playing field and gives everyone an equal chance if they hope to win the weekly prize. If you don't like the idea, don't just run away - let me know, and perhaps offer suggestions as to how the load can be eased. I really don't want to go down the road of a DT if I can help it (a friend who is very experienced in running challenges with DTs likened that to 'trying to herd cats') but something has to give in terms of the time it's taking to keep the Playground going - on top of this weekly post of course. And I want to keep this as a weekly challenge for now.............you have no idea how many prizes are lined up , can't get the lid on the toy box right now!

So, a maximum of ONE entry this week and please say in a comment if you wish to play and be a possible winner of the prize. If you only want to play for either the die or the set of sentiment stamps then just say so in a comment - if your number comes up then I'll do a further draw for the remaining part of the prize. But, both items are up as one complete prize if you so wish of course. Please also link back to the Playground in your blog post to be eligible for the draw.

Mr Linky is below - please let me know if you have any problems linking, it's easy for me to sort out so don't struggle on alone :)

Enjoy your week - remember it's Rudolph Day over at ScrappyMo's starting on Thursday to the end of the month. It's a shorter month this time round so best to start planning now :)

Who knows, there's a very good chance my snippets card next Sunday will be a Christmas one for Mo's challenge!
 
Di and, of course, Parsnip!
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